Great Books For Misanthropes

byJosh HanagarneonNovember 9, 2010

If you have been readingWorld’s Strongest Librarianfor very long you may have forgotten that not everyone likes people. I don’t like everyone, but there are people out there who don’t like anyone. Some of them are authors. And some of those authors have written some great books for misanthropes. Misanthropy is the condition of loathing humanity, for whatever reasons. I’m an occasional misanthrope, and those are the times when I take out books like these:

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Candide by Voltaire

Freedom and The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (Not everyone will agree with this one, but I think Franzen’s novels are lengthy–and great–examples of just how crappy people can be to each other

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Filth by Irvine Welsh

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

Justine by the Marquis de Sade

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis (I don’t consider this a great book, but a great book for the topic today, books about misanthropy, definitely–a guest’s book review of American Psycho)

I could go on, but then I might wind up hating people for the rest of the day. Help me fill in the gaps.